Part II

When the sun peeked though the cracks of the shades, my eyelids fluttered open. I gave a soft groan as I sat up from my sleeping position. The morning air was cold, but I forced myself to get into the shower.
The sharp minty scent of my shampoo woke me up, (although the cold water did a pretty good job too) and by the time I was drying my hair with a towel, I was wide awake. I slipped into dry clothes, then glanced at the clock. It was only 5:45 in the morning. I sighed and made my way to my laptop, but not before tripping over something. Catching myself, I took a sharp breath in before looking down to see what I had tripped over.
It was the book. I picked it up gently, not knowing why I carried it with such care. Then, I gingerly opened the first page. All of a sudden, I remembered what I had read last night. After a moment, I took a deep breath in.
The book had said something about me being one of the seven to be entrusted with powers to help the universe. I was supposed to be one of them, given the gift of time control. Every so often, the universe would have some issues and a large number of problems would come up. Apparently, it made a lot of religious people think that the Armageddon was coming and it was up to the seven to fix the problem before it actually happened.
I scoffed and then put the book back down. Sure, we were having a lot of problems with the world, but that didn't mean that we were entrusted with powers and stuff. Besides, I couldn't control time like the book said, could I?
The memories of the previous day rushed through me and inwardly, I shook myself. I could not control time. I'd only been...spacing off, that was all.
I remembered that Linda was usually on in the morning, since she was an early riser, so I took the chance to turn on my laptop and log onto to gmail. It was a good thing that I had turned off the sound last night or else my parents would have been really ticked off. Not to mention my brothers. Although I was in the attic, it didn't mean they couldn't hear. In fact, my brothers had super sensitive hearing despite the fact that they played loud heavy metal music almost 24/7. They probably trained themselves to make sure they wouldn't get caught doing whatever they did. I hoped that they didn't do anything too bad.
The laptop finally logged me into gmail and sure enough, Linda was on.

Gwen: you there?
Linda: yeah
Gwen: you get a chance to read your book?
Linda: *nods* it was really weird...
Gwen: did you get the feeling that...
Linda: you couldn't really understand yet you understood at the same time?
Gwen: exactly
Linda: what did you get from your book?
Gwen: i...
something about some gifted seven saving the world
Linda: same...
i also got something about my having the ability to control plants
you?
Gwen: something about controlling time
too much like the symbols on our books
Linda: no kidding
mine was a flower and yours was an hourglass
Gwen: this is getting kinda creepy
but it couldn't be true could it?
it has to be some hoax or something, right?
Linda: one can only hope
Gwen: what's that supposed to mean?
Linda: there is a chance that this could be true
Gwen: but there's no such thing as magic or anything of that sort
it defies all logic
Linda: true enough, but who ever said the world made sense?
Gwen: no one did, but this is outrageous
Linda: you have a point
but think about it
what if it was real?
Gwen: our powers could be used for really dangerous things
Linda: exactly
if people knew, they would want to control us so that they could use us for their own benefit
Gwen: and that would be really really bad
Linda: we have to talk about this to the others
Gwen: tiffany's probably read it
but we can't count on the others to have read it
justine is...
well, justine
she doesn't read books usually
Linda: kendra and ellen...no one can really say for sure
they're so...
Gwen: unpredictable
Linda: carmen might have read it but...
i dunno
Gwen: she's more fantasy book type of person but who can say for sure
Linda: exactly (I heard the sound of movement from below and sighed.)
Gwen: agh
family waking up
i gtg
Linda: okay, talk to you at school
you should bring your book with you
Gwen: k, bye

I logged off and turned off the computer as quickly as I could before slipping downstairs to help with breakfast. It was usually my dad and I who did the cooking. My mom was hopeless. On her defense, she did try, but we usually told her to just sit down and let us do the cooking. My brothers weren't much better really, so it was up to my dad and me.
By the time everyone had come down, breakfast was done and I sat down with the rest of the family to grab a quick bite before heading out the door to catch the bus.
We had no one else in the family to depend on other than ourselves usually. Mom and Dad took care of me until I was 12, though they slowly weaned me out of it over time. After that, I was on my own. I woke myself up, changed myself, shopped for clothing, bought groceries, and did whatever else I needed to do in order to survive. The only thing that my parents did was make money, pay the bills, and pay the taxes.
Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for what they did do. They couldn't be expected to take care of their seven children all the time. We had two cars, one for my father and one for my mother when they went to work. The rest of us had to walk, bike, or take the bus to get around. I learned quickly. One had to adapt or else they wouldn't last long in this family.
No one else I knew lived this far out, so I sat alone on the bus until I made it near the school. I thanked the bus driver and walked the rest of the way to school. I didn't take a school bus because no school bus came this far out, so I took the town bus. The bus came at 6:45, so I usually arrived at school at around 7:00. That left me with around a half an hour to kill before the school would let students in.
I didn't like it much at first, but I enjoyed the silence after a while. It was nice to be able to have a moment of peace and quiet.
But that morning, Linda came at 7:15 with her bike. It was odd that she came this early, even though she did wake up early, but I didn't question her as to why. What surprised me even more was the arrival of the rest of my group only a couple seconds later.
Justine arrived by skateboard, Tiffany by car, Carmen by scooter, and the twins by foot. Somehow, even though I was astonished to find my friends here early, it felt right, almost natural that they would be here. I didn't really know why I had this feeling, but it was there.
"What are you guys all doing here?" I asked them when everyone had settled down on the grassy lawn.
"To tell you the truth, I don't know why. I normally don't even wake up until 7:35." We all chucked at Justine's words. She was always late to class. Either that or she would make it there at the last second.
"Kendra and I aren't usually awake until 7:20."
"My parents have me up at 7:00, but I'm still usually not here at school at this time. I had my parents drive me here though. It just felt like the right thing to do."
"Yeah, I just woke up at 6:30 for no apparent reason and found myself here now." Carmen fiddled with a blue wheel on her scooter as she said this.
"Did everyone read the book?" Linda went straight to the point, not even bothering to answer why she was here this early. To my surprise, everyone nodded.
"Even you read it, Justine?" Tiffany sounded shocked as well.
"Yup. First book I've read it ages." This meant that she hadn't been reading some of the assigned English book, but I felt it wasn't the time to point it out.
"Did everyone find out about some seven people and saving the universe and their supposed power?" I wondered aloud.
"Uh huh. I control fire." Justine's red streaked hair bobbed up and down with her nods.
"I control wind." Tiffany's soft voice was followed by a gentle breeze, causing all of us to shiver with the thought of us actually having these powers.
"I control plant life." Linda's quiet but firm voice answered next.
"I have telekinesis." Kendra answered first out of the twins.
"And I have telepathy." Ellen replied right after her sister. It made sense that Kendra and Ellen would end up with similar gifts.
"I control water." Carmen's bubbly voice was not quiet as perky as usual, and reminded me of the calm before a storm.
"I control time." I answered last, after everyone else. My guesses had been pretty much all right, except for Kendra and Ellen's, because I hadn't been able to figure out those two.
"Could all this be true?" Tiffany's wide brown eyes flickered worriedly over all of our faces.
"It would be pretty neat if it were, but it'd be creepy." Justine seemed to have not a care in the world as she absentmindedly pulled up a few blades of grass.
"But no one can control those things, can they?" Both Kendra and Ellen asked in hushed tones at the same time. Their pale green eyes were large as they looked at each other.
"Who knows..." Linda said, causing all of us to think about what all this could be.
"Can I look at someone else's book?" All heads swiveled to the owner of the voice, which happened to be Carmen.
"Sure, take mine!" Justine's book flew in the air to Carmen. She caught it, but then dropped it in an instant, her face twisted in pain.
"Are you alright?" Linda was at Carmen's side in a flash, her hazel eyes inspecting Carmen's hands. Her hands were red and they looked almost as if...they were burnt.
"I'm...not sure." Carmen looked at all of us with frightened chocolate colored eyes.
"What happened?" Tiffany was next to Linda beside Carmen now, also looking down at the hands that had dropped Justine's book.
"It was almost as if...as if the book was on fire." We were all quiet for a moment.
"Someone take someone else's book." I looked at Linda incredulously. After what had happened, she still wanted someone to take another person's book?
"You sure that's a good idea?" Kendra and Ellen voiced what I had been afraid to say, but nicer.
"If no one else will, then I will." She took a deep breath and took Tiffany's book into her hands. Almost instantly, she was blown backwards by an invisible force, and the book flew out of her hands and into Tiffany's lap.
"Linda!" I realized the voice was mine as I moved to her side.
"I'm okay, just...winded." What she said was rather ironic in my opinion, but I kept that thought to myself.
"After all this, do you really think that maybe..." Kendra began.
"...the stuff that the books told us is true?" Ellen finished.
"I...I don't know. It seems almost true, but my mind doesn't want to accept it quite yet." Linda said slowly, voicing my own uncertainty.
I stared at my own book, sitting near my backpack.
What would my book do if someone touched it? What if I can control time? How can any of this be real? Am I dreaming?
I pinched myself. And it hurt. I sighed and removed myself from my own little world.
"We should...think about it during the day." Tiffany suggested.
"I think that's a good idea." Justine replied, and the rest of us nodded, most with a bit of hesitation and worry.
"I'm going to go inside now. I have some stuff I need to pick up from my locker." Linda picked up her backpack and book before heading indoors.
"I should probably go too." Carmen left without any other words. Slowly, the others all said something about having to do something inside and then I was the only one left.
I took a moment to organize my thoughts and then picked up my own things before joining the others inside.
~*~
I couldn't concentrate all day. I kept making stupid mistakes that I knew I normally wouldn't make. I mean, I know that two times four is eight, not six. But I made those kinds of errors throughout the day, not only in math, but in all my other subjects. I couldn't believe I actually wrote: he has doing much good. I just don't do those kinds of things. And yet I did.
It was extremely frustrating knowing that I was completely screwing up. I was so relieved when school finally ended and I got to see my friends at our meeting spot.
"Let's go to the library again." We all looked at Linda carefully, making sure she wasn't joking, and then we exploded with questions.
"Why would we even want to go back?!" Justine half-shouted, causing some of the passing people to look at us weirdly.
"Justine, you really need to calm down. But I kind of agree. These books showed up from there. How do we know that it's safe to go back?" Tiffany's voice was filled with an inner calm, but her eyes were concerned.
"I have my reasons for going back. I just feel it's right. Maybe we can find answers there." The blond haired girl probably felt as if she was losing control. I knew she didn't like that.
"And maybe we can get into some sort of trouble there!" This wasn't like Carmen. We all stared at her for a moment before turning back to Linda.
"Can you all please just trust me?" she pleaded with us. Her eyes grew big and her lower lip stuck out in a pout. I sighed.
"Just this once, Linda. If anything happens while we're at the library, we aren't going to go back. Do you understand?" I kept my voice low and steady. "Is that fair enough?"
"I guess that..."
"...should be okay." The twins hadn't said anything before, but they both looked scared and worried. Naturally, all of us were. Or so I assumed. I knew I was.
We picked up our bags and headed to the library in almost complete silence. Tiffany was fidgety, constantly looking around as if someone was watching us. Kendra and Ellen nervously fiddled with their hair. Justine was biting her nails, a bad habit she'd never been able to get rid of. Carmen kept fixing her clothes, as if there was constantly something wrong with them. I didn't notice that I had been flexing and unflexing my fingers until I looked down to see what was hitting against my legs. Only Linda remained calm.
The doors soon loomed in front of us and we all milled around the entrance, unsure of what to do. Linda took the initiative and pushed open the door. We all held our breaths. Nothing happened, so we all took a couple of tentative steps. Still nothing. It took us a couple more steps to feel better about the whole going into the library process.
Several people in the library looked at us strangely, as if to say "you've never been in a library?" I'm sure we must have looked absolutely ridiculous.
I gave a sigh of relief as we sat down in the corner of the library with some comfy couches. I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath for that long, but now I knew, and my head spun with the sudden rush of oxygen. If I had been standing, I'd probably would have fallen.
"So nothing happened. Happy now?" Linda smiled triumphantly, and we all gave weak grins back.
"Yeah, fine, you were right. Whatever." Justine rolled her eyes and acted uncaring, but I knew that she was annoyed and relieved at the same time. It was the kind of thing I just knew from past experiences.
"Well, we're all okay, which is good. I think we should talk about the books." Tiffany took slight charge of the situation when she saw that Linda had not brought up the idea.
"I guess this is as good of a place as anywhere else." Carmen was looking like usual again. Bright smile and a sort of up and down motion were generally good signs that she was alright. She always seemed to be bobbing up and down in excitement or hyper-ness.
"Let's take out our books then." Linda said as she took out her own and placed it on the circular table in the middle of the couches. Soon, seven books lay flat on the table in a circle.
"I know that we can't touch anyone else's book," Ellen started this time.
"but can we look at another person's book?" And Kendra ended the sentence.
They did occasionally speak their own sentences, but in general, they finished each others' sentences.
"I dunno. I guess we try it out?" I carefully lifted the edge of my book and flipped it open. I could see the graceful writing on the pages, but the others winced and shielded their eyes.
"What's wrong?" I asked, not seeing why they were acting this way.
"It's so...so bright." I could barely see Carmen's face behind her hands.
"It seems to be emitting a silvery glow around it." Tiffany supplied, squinting at the book.
"You don't have a problem with it?" Linda had noticed my obvious comfort with my book and immediately questioned it.
"No, I don't have a problem at all. It just seems like a normal book with strange writing in it." I closed the book, and the others let out a breath, putting down their hands.
We repeated the process with everyone else's book. Justine's shone a brilliant red, while Carmen's was a cool, but eye-piercing blue. Linda's was radiant green, and Tiffany's was so white that even freshly fallen snow would look off-white compared to it. Kendra's and Ellen's were both a blinding purple. The owner of the book couldn't see the light (although Kendra couldn't see Ellen's, and vice versa), while the rest of us could.
The colors matched the ones on the cover. We didn't really notice that until everyone had recovered from the colorful lights. I had flashing lights in front of my eyes for quite some time afterward, and the others probably did too.
"I guess we can't see each others' books." Justine shrugged and was about to put her book back into her bag when Linda stopped her with a tap on the shoulder.
"What?" she snapped at Linda's touch.
"I want all of us to write down what we see in our books and then show it to the others." This was addressed to not only Justine but the rest of us.
"We probably should go different places in the library." I said, still not fully recovered from the glaring glows given off by the books.
"What if other people can see it?" Tiffany had a good point, I had to admit.
"Okay, well then let's all just try to cope with other people's books." Carmen said, clapping her hands together. I couldn't figure out what was so exciting. If that was the reason for her clapping in the first place, anyways.
I opened my book along with the others, and we all winced at each others' light, but carefully copied down some of the text in the book on a scrap of paper from our backpacks.
Tiffany was the first to finish. Linda was next, followed by myself, Carmen, Kendra and Ellen, and finally Justine.
"Everyone has their text now?" Kendra asked.
"Is it legible?" Ellen questioned. Justine laughed nervously, and we all chuckled, shaking our heads. Her writing sometimes was so bad that even I couldn't read it, and I had been reading her writing since we were both able to write.
"Let's put them on the table and rotate them until we get ours back." Tiffany put her paper on the table as she said this, and we all followed her example.
One by one, the other pieces of papers made their way through my hands. I recognized them from my own book, but I couldn't understand them like I had with my own.
When mine came back, I knew what mine said, unlike with the others.
"Did anyone else have the sense that-"
"-we couldn't understand the other people's text even though it was familiar from our own?" I finished for Tiffany. Everyone muttered a 'yes' or a 'yeah' in Justine's case.
"Creepy isn't it?" Kendra asked.
"We can tell that it's like our own," Ellen said...
"but we can't understand it." ...with Kendra finishing.
"No shit!" Justine clapped her hand over her mouth when she realized that she'd been a little louder than she needed to be. We burst into laughed, giggling uncontrollably for some time.
"Well, I guess the next step is to try and see if we can do what the books say we can do." I felt my mouth drop open as I stared at Linda. She kept bringing up all these things that were really quite shocking.
"Alright, let's go!" Carmen seemed very enthused, and stuffed her book into her bag before scampering towards the exit. We all scrambled to keep up with her, sticking books into bags while walking quickly and trying to actually get on our backpacks without knocking over books. It was a good thing that I was fairly organized and quick.
Soon, we were out in the large field where most of the gym classes were when it was nice out. I was filled with the urge to run around, but I contained myself and sat down with the others on the cool green grass.
"So...we try?" Carmen smiled mischeviously, pulling out a water bottle from her backpack. The rest of us nervously gave half-smiles back as we fidgeted slightly.
"Who's first?" Tiffany asked, looking as if she'd rather do backflips than actually try to control the air. (She can't do backflips and probably will never want to do one.)
"Oh, pick me!" We all laughed at Carmen's enthusiastic reply but sobered up when she unscrewed the cap of her bottle and stared at it. Then she closed her eyes and her brow creased a little. Her hand came up over the bottle slowly, almost as if she wasn't actually controlling it. The water stirred a little as she wiggled her fingers over the top. We all stared at her and the bottle.
Her brow creased a little more as she took her index finger and trailed it upwards. The water flowed up through the top, almost like a snake. She gave a little gasp, and her eyes fluttered open. The water dropped from its position and splashed to the ground.
"Are you okay, Carmen?" I asked, concerned and in a state of shock.
"I'm fine... Just...extremely tired... I... I don't know why..." She didn't seem quite sure, but I couldn't blame her.
"I guess someone else should try now..." Justine murmured softly.
Linda turned out to be that someone. We all watched her carefully as she made several circling motions over the earth beside her. Like Carmen, she seemed almost in a trance, not quite in this world, as she did this. Her hand suddenly moved up a foot or so from the ground and a small lily sprouted underneath her palm. Then her eyes opened and she stared at the flower that she had just grew. Her eyes were filled with a great weariness, as if she had been exercising all day or something.
Justine was next. We moved onto the pavement for this, for we didn't want her burning the grass. She took longer than the previous too, spending most of her time just with her eyes closed and fingers twitching slightly. It took us all by surprise when her hands suddenly burst into flame. They were extinguished quickly when she opened her eyes. Her hands looked untouched, though she claimed that she could feel a gentle heat licking her hands. She too was exhausted afterward.
Tiffany offered to go and so we all moved back onto the grass and sat patiently as she too had her moment of silence as she concentrated. A spiral of wind acted almost like a tornado around her, whipping her hair up, but only for a second. Her eyes flashed open in surprise and the wind died down. She almost seemed to droop from the effort of performing this task.
Kendra went first out of the twins, holding a small flat stone in her hand. After a minute or so, the stone left her hand shakily, quivering in the air. It dropped back into her hand as soon as her eyes opened. The stone dropped from her hand as her arm fell to her side.
Ellen had a more difficult time, for she supposedly had telepathy. She chose Justine to be her test subject. She wanted to choose Kendra at first, but they already finished each other's sentences all the time, so we didn't allow it. As she was in her half-conscious state, she asked Justine in a eeriely calm voice to think of a number. Ellen recited a whole string of numbers that left Justine flabbergasted before she came back to us. She curled up next to Kendra, and the two seemed to be almost like cats taking a nap together.
I was last. I wasn't sure how to show them, but when I let my mind wander off, I just knew what I needed to do. My hands moved on their own on the ground before me, tracing a counter clockwise circle. I vaguely heard the others gasp in surprise. I knew that I was slowing down time, but I didn't exactly know how. It was almost as if someone was taking my hands and moving them for me, showing me what to do. My eyes opened slowly, as if I had just awakened from a long sleep. Everything seemed normal, but my friends were looking around them with wide-eyes and open mouths. And then all of a sudden, I was so tired. It felt like the time I had done two all-nighters in a row. I hadn't been this tired in ages.
"Is everything alright?" I asked, unsure of what exactly had happened. I had the impression that I had slowed time, but I hadn't seen it for myself.
"E-everything slowed down. The birds flapped their wings at snail pace and the wind moved the grass in a extremely slowed down wave." Linda half-whispered, still staring at the grass with large eyes.
The others had been able to feel the effect of their actions, but I hadn't really been able to tell. I half knew what I had been doing but I couldn't see the results for myself. Carmen could feel her water spashing down from where it had been. Linda could see her flower. Justine could feel the heat from her flames. Tiffany felt her breeze. Kendra felt her stone move away from her hand and back. Ellen heard what was in Justine's mind and said it aloud. Only I could not see my results. I only had the others to confirm what I had done. I felt a little disappointed, but I didn't say.
It was getting late, and we all parted ways, not talking about what had happened. I reached my house at around seven. I had dinner with my family and this time, I actually remembered some of the stuff that happened. Jason apparently asked out a girl at his school and promptly was turned down. Still, he was better off than poor Alexander, who got slapped by the girl he asked. I felt kind of bad for them until they started bothering me about not having been asked out yet. So to ease my anger, I punched Jacob. (Don't ask me how I tell my brothers apart from each other. The J triplets [Jason, Jacob, Johnathan] all look the same, but somehow I know. It's weird, but I do. Two of the A triplets [Aaron and Alexander] have the same hair style, but the last one [Adam] recently did something weird to his hair and it looks different from the others. They're still all technically identical though.)
My parents didn't notice my punching Jacob, not that they would have really cared even if they did see it. My mother and father were both probably tired from their jobs at the aquarium. Yes, they work at the aquarium. They love aquatic life, which is probably why we live by the sea.
As soon as dinner was over, I did my homework. It wasn't too bad, but it was mostly just tedious. The math homework was repetitive, but I knew the stuff, so it wasn't too bad. I had already finished the English essay on American writers a couple days ago (I'm a pretty fast writer, and fairly good I suppose), so I could skip that. The social studies homework was this reading on Buddhism, and it was really boring. At least there weren't any questions with it. Not yet anyways. There wasn't any science homework since we had a test the following day. I did a little studying, but in general, I knew the material.
I didn't take a language (unless you count Latin [dead language so I guess it sort of is a language], which the only homework for that was vocabulary memorization) or any music course, but I did take a class that had to do with law. It was actually pretty interesting, and I was considering on becoming a lawyer. Or at least a paralegal or something. The homework for that was a bunch of research that, thankfully, I'd already finished during study. At 10, I finally got a chance to get onto my computer.
Only Justine was on gmail.

Gwen: 'tine?
Justine: hey gwen
Gwen: you alright after everything today?
Justine: yeah
still kinda in shock though
Gwen: can't blame you
i could barely stop thinking about it enough to eat dinner properly and get my homework done
Justine: i think i'll go to school early in the morning now
Gwen: what?!
Justine: we can practice in the mornings
Gwen: oh...
we could practice by my house in the afternoon
it's a little far, but there's a cave near the beach by the ocean
we could go there so that other people can't see us
Justine: sounds good
Gwen: i'll tell Linda tomorrow morning
and the others after school
i don't think i'll be very surprised if the others show up early again tomorrow
Justine: i don't think so either actually
it's weird...
Gwen: how you just sorta know?
Justine: yeah...
Gwen: what do you think we're up against?
Justine: what do you mean?
Gwen: you know how we're supposed to save the world from the Apocalypse?
Justine: um...
dunno?
maybe global warming or sumthin
Gwen: i just can't get my mind off of it
no matter what i do, i'm constantly reminded of today's events and just everything that could result from all of this and i don't know how much sleep i'll be able to get tonight
Justine: dude, you need to chill
Gwen: i know i do, but i can't help but worry...
Justine: try to get a good night's sleep, okay gweny-poo? (She only really used that name for me when she wanted to bother me or be affectionate. And she only used it online when there were no other people. I was thankful for that.)
Gwen: alright, but don't call me gweny-poo!
Justine: you sound like inez from this tv show i used to watch
Gwen: cyberchase?
Justine: exactly
she would say, don't call me nezzie!
Gwen: i guess i do sound kinda like her
Justine: XD
Gwen: well, g'night i guess
Justine: yeah
g'night

She logged off a second before I did. I collapsed onto my bed. Throughout the night, I fell asleep, woke up, tossed and turned, fell asleep...in an endless cycle. Through all this, I managed to have a strange dream about volcanoes erupting and earthquakes and floods of water and extreme heat.
~*~
In the morning, even the cold water and scent of my shampoo failed to wake my properly. Still, I managed to get to school without falling asleep on the bus.
"Dude, you look like shit!" I gave a half laugh at Justine's exclamation as she arrived by skateboard. She was the first to arrive after myself, which surprised me a little.
"I'm sure I do. I barely slept all night."
"Aww... Come here." I shuffled my way over to her, and I was soon squashed against her in a tight hug. I felt a couple back bones crack as she squeezed.
"Feel better?"
"A little... Well, at least it's Friday..." I mumbled, rubbing my eyes drowzily.
Linda was the next to arrive. She too was surprised at Justine's promptness. Tiffany showed up soon after. Kendra, Ellen and Carmen arrived together. And then we were all there.
"I guess everyone wanted to see what they could do?" I murmured wearily to the group.
"Yeah... You okay, Gwen?" I gave a tired smile to Carmen before answering.
"I'm fine, just really exhausted from lack of sleep."
"Well, who wants to go?" Linda took charge of the group and when no one volunteered, she tried herself. This time, she was able to make a blade of grass grow longer without having to close her eyes. I noticed that it took a considerably shorter amount of time for her make it grow. Still, it was tolling on her, for her eyes immediately lost some of their awake-ness.
Carmen was able to pull some of the dew off the grass and morph it into different shapes. We laughed as Justine's hair went up in flames for a moment, though her hair didn't actually burn. Ellen made Tiffany turn completely red as she told all of us what Tiffany was thinking about. (She had her mind on Michael.) Kendra had a little stone whiz around our heads until Tiffany knocked the stone off to the side with a gust of wind. I was able to remain awake enough to speed up time a little so that there were only 10 more minutes left before other people would arrive by letting my mind, so to speak, open, and making clockwise circular motions with my hands.
Whenever one of us lost concentration, whatever we were trying to do stopped. If one of us disturbed someone else, we lost control of what we were doing. We were very careful not to disturb Justine, because we knew that her fire could prove to be dangerous.
It was easier for all of us to do what had taken each of us around 3 minutes last time. Although in my case, I really lost all sense of time so I wasn't sure how long it had really taken me. Even so, I could tell that everyone was tired from their efforts. I was left even more tired than I began with, but I was pleased with what I was able to do.
We parted ways when we saw someone coming to the school. I didn't see them again until the end of the day.
During the day, I fell asleep at my desk in math, though when Mr. Foy rapped on my desk with a ruler, I was able to answer the question he had on the board quickly. I was glad I knew the stuff. In English, I half snoozed the time away since everyone else was working on their essays. Gym woke me up considerably, especially since the exercise and fresh air cleared my mind. I was a lot better in social studies and science, and I felt I knew the answers to the questions on the science test fairly well. Law was as interesting as always, although I could tell some of the other students looked ready to take a nap. I laughed internally when I saw one of the guys behind me drool in his sleep. Later on, Ms. Linae whacked him on the head with a rolled up packet of paper. Latin was not the most interesting, seeing as the only thing we really did was have a quiz on vocab and study for the test on Monday.
When we met after school, we waited until the other students had left before I led them to the bus stop that took me home and we spent the rest of the day in the cave by the beach. We all took a long time to get a good grasp on what we could do, and even so, it was difficult and tiring.
Carmen was completely in her element there. She dived right into the water without thinking and completely goofed off in there the whole afternoon. Her fingers and toes didn't even get prune-y. (And her clothes didn't get wet either.) She didn't really mess around with the water, but she seemed to have a great time just being in the water.
Linda spent her time making the wild grass grow taller and making them curl into different shapes. Justine promptly burned Linda's grass sculptures, which was alright, because there was only small bunches of grass here and there on the sand. They look long breaks in between each creation and destruction of a sculpture though. During those breaks, they lay in the sand and stared at the clouds, just relaxing before trying again.
Kendra and Tiffany were playing some sort of game with a stone. It was suspended in between them and it seemed as if they were trying to push it towards the other. Sometimes it would move towards Kendra when the wind created by Tiffany was particularly strong, but other times it would come closer to Tiffany when the wind was weaker. They stopped every couple of minutes to sit on the stones near the water to rest, idly flicking the water with their bare feet.
Ellen sat the whole time with her face in sort of in a spaced out expression. She occasionally smiled at something or frowned at something else, but generally, she was still during the time we were there. I think part of the time she was reading people's minds, but the other bit was spend resting and clearing her mind.
I watched the events that were interested slowed down so I could see every detail, while I watched boring ones quickly. It was tolling though. I had to open my mind so that I was aware of everything around me. I suppose it was almost what you could call enlightenment, except I wasn't actually enlightened.
With my senses more aware of my surroundings and my mind almost empty of thought except for concentration on my time control, I was able to manipulate the time around me. The longer I kept myself in this manner, the more tired I felt. It was as if someone was adding weights to my body and sucking away my energy bit by bit.
My concentration would slip here and there, and time would go back to normal speed. It was hard to keep up the time control, and perhaps my gift was more difficult to use than the others. I was messing around with time (I mean seriously, TIME!), while they were just messing around with the elements and their mind.
When the sky began to get dark, I was ready to fall asleep on the sand. Except I knew I couldn't do that. I had to get everyone else home first.
I taught everyone how to use the bus to get to near their house before trudging back into my own home. I nearly fell asleep at the dinner table (but my brothers poked me as soon as my head started bobbing) and barely managed to get my homework done before I went to bed. I didn't bother to try getting onto the computer before I drifted off into sleep.